LOS ANGELES —
Defiance seeks to go where no other TV series has gone: weaving a show with an online
video game to parlay success on one entertainment platform into success on another.

The sci-fi drama, premiering tonight on Syfy, tells the story of frontier town Defiance —
formerly St. Louis — in the near future after a 30-year war between humans and seven alien
races.

Syfy recently released a multi-player video game, developed with Trion Worlds, that lets users
build personas and explore the landscape of a reshaped Earth in the San Francisco area.

Spinning a film or TV series into a video game, or vice versa, isn’t new, but producers say
Defiance is the first to weave both game and show together simultaneously. The video game
alone took about five years to create.

Known in the entertainment industry as the “second screen,” the concept allows viewers to engage
with a show on a second platform on which networks pin hopes on generating additional advertising
sales and cementing a dedicated fan base.

“What’s unusual about what we’re doing . . . is we’re building the second-screen concept into
the actual DNA of the show-game combo,” said
Defiance executive producer Kevin Murphy.

“We’re working to make a terrific serialized drama that stands on its own, but we understand
that what has people watching us is the fact that this cross-platform promotional is something
very, very desirable.”

Defiance will be a guinea pig for the viability of merging media such as video games with
TV shows.

“Nobody has done this before — that’s the scary part,” Murphy said. “The wonderful part is that
there’s nobody to say, ‘No, no, no, that’s not the way it’s done.’ ”

Syfy spent about $100 million to develop the game and show, and the network expects about 20
percent of viewers and players to cross platforms.

“We’re very cautiously optimistic,” said Syfy President Dave Howe, adding that the standard four
to five weeks will be needed to know whether
Defiance will be renewed for a second season.

The series cast is led by former Marine and vagabond Nolan (played by
Liz & Dick star Grant Bowler) and his adopted alien daughter, Irisa (Stephanie
Leonidas).

The two help Defiance Mayor Amanda Rosewater (Julie Benz) defend the town from invasion.

Murphy wanted to depart from the recent norm of dark, dystopian sci-fi, such as
TheWalking Dead on AMC and
Battlestar Galactica on Syfy.

“I think this is sort of a tip of the hat more to the old-school science fiction — like
Star Trek and
Star Wars, which were very hopeful, optimistic worlds,” Murphy said.

The show often reflects American challenges of an ethnically diverse and often divided
society.

In the pilot, polyglot alliances are tricky as humans and some races of aliens must reluctantly
brush aside differences to protect the town from automatons known as the Volge.

“On our show, the aliens are not invading us,” Murphy said. “The aliens are part of the melting
pot.”